Roger Ebert Reviews

Few of this year’s debut features feel as achingly personal as “The Inspection,” in which writer/director Elegance Bratton chronicles his own story of how his service in the Marine Corps brought him self acceptance. It’s a gift he had never received from his mother, who rejected him upon discovering that he was gay. Jeremy Pope, […]

We asked ten contributors to pick three films from 2022 that they think everyone should see before making their top ten lists of the year. These are the choices of Robert Daniels. It’s an annual ritual for me: End of the year lists drop from major publications and respected colleagues and I pull my hair

Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) has spent the last 25 years in prison, taking the fall for his friends in the New York mafia. He ain’t no snitch; he’s good at keeping his mouth shut, working out, and brushing up on his reading (Faust, Shakespeare, The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene) while he

Christmas movies are already upon us, and major streamer Apple TV hopes they have a new holiday classic in “Spirited,” a big-hearted-but-clumsy riff Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with two of the most likable movie stars alive. “Spirited” is like a big goofy puppy in how much it really wants you to like it, and

With “A Couple,” the legendary 92-year-old Frederick Wiseman has finally directed a scripted drama after making documentaries for 60 years. And not just any documentaries: Wiseman’s work tends to focus on institutions and the individual’s function within them. In filming, they practice a doctrine of non-intervention, observing events that are already happening while trying their

Back when I was a whelp in my early twenties, cruising through life with naught but my own pleasure in my windshield, my rearview, and both side mirrors, the diamond concern De Beers concocted an ingenious, some would even say diabolical, marketing campaign, strongly suggesting to the bachelors of Europe and America that when preparing

The modern blockbuster has been diluted on the big screen, overtaken by the MCU juggernaut that has delivered a pretty weak slate of post-pandemic films. One of the reasons that “Top Gun: Maverick” became one of the biggest films of all time was that it delivered the kind of escapist blockbuster entertainment that feels increasingly

For the young heroes and heroines in the tenderly magical fables by Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, their large-than-life journeys take them inward. In tandem with the wondrous handcraft on display, it’s the honest richness of their characters’ personal predicaments that distinguishes the studio’s features from most Western family-friendly fare. Cartoon Saloon’s latest soul-soothing and modestly

“The Calling” brings God to a New York City crime scene, thanks to the immense Jewish faith of Detective Avraham Avraham. Played with almost too soft and monotone of a voice by Jeff Wilbusch, Det. Avraham (known by his colleagues as Avi) walks into a missing persons case with a certain confidence because of his

Every year as we turn back our clocks and woodsmoke fills the crisp air, Christmas movies begin to fill the airwaves. While Hallmark started their barrage of cinematic holiday treats as early as October this year, Netflix waited until November to begin their annual slate of romantic snow-filled sleigh rides. Leading the way is “Falling